The guitarist Igor Timofeev thinks that the videoclip “Zvezda” (The star) comprises all the ideas of the motion picture and thus the shooting is over…

Leonid Leikin thinks there’s a series to be filmed and in particular from the starting point of Episode 3. ..

Anyway, the work goes on.

In following we offer you the video “Zvezda”, one significant photo and the long text which explains its significance.

Please, don’t get me wrong. A new thing is a new thing. An old one is old.

A thing comes cold to the world. Then it meets its first human being, takes a part of their warmth, their soul. Then it happens again and again.

Coloured by people’s love, a thing starts glistening, the circle of its admirers expands.

Both a human and a thing may have quarrels, divorces, picnics, weddings and crimes. A thing can run away from home, have an affair. A thing can punish or even kill. Don’t get me wrong.

There are living things and there are dead things. Just like people. But dead man is usually buried while a dead thing persists in the world until it is physically decayed .

A living thing has always been a part of a man’s destiny. Whether it was a car or a salt cellar. In the beginning of 70’s people started to sing sad songs. Weariness and the Lack of Faith have been summoned by the sounds of those ballads:lack of Faith in many things, including one’s own work. Why must one produce a good thing? Who will see the difference?

China, cold-blooded and faceless, loaded us with so many dead things. Particularly mean is the fact that they were the copies of the real things, an in each and every one of them there was a little man with his hard moustache and sly eyes, laughing…

Musical instruments have endured the longest…

I’m constantly in search of old guitars, trying to keep or to extend their life. I know there will come a day when there will be not a single old guitar leftin the world. But until then…

Hofner Congress comes from the 50’s . Pretty low priced it gained not too much respect and could be taken everywhere: to a beach, to a picnic… So just very few of them survived.

The classified ad attracted me by its brevity and a kind of timidity: “An old guitar for sale”. Full stop. And just one photo with an old wrapping in front. It seemed to me that the owner didn’t want to approach any nearer to it. The price was plainly invented: 100 Euro. By its shape I guessed it would be a Hofner. I’ve got a confirmation on the phone later. He also said that the guitar was hanging on the wall for 40 years. We made an appointment.

At night in the hallway of his house somewhere in Bavaria I asked him if he knows that his guitars actually would cost much more.

“It’s possible”, he said, “but it doesn’t matter now”.

He didn’t put the hundred Euro into his pocket, just kept trying to get rid of the banknotes.
We had to co-operate to put the old wrapping on. The guitar didn’t want to fit in. I asked him if he plays at all. He answered rather loud, as if it was for someone else.

“No. My father wanted me to, so he gave it to me”, then he corrected himself, “well, he bought it for me”.

He really wanted me to leave. I wanted the same.

In the car I had to open the windows, so strong was the foul smell of the wrapping . No, this guitar was not hanging on the wall. It was closed up in a cellar when a small boy has not become a musician. But dreams are dying slowly, so neither father nor the son were capable of parting with this thing.

How it shined when I removed the mould and grime layer. It was actually NEW! Nobody has ever played on it ! Inside I noticed a piece of paper. I’ve pulled it out and sat for a long time not knowing what to do with it. On a crumpled piece of paper there was a child scribble: a boy behind bars (or strings) and an inscription “I mustn’t”.

A very intense one and a half years have ended with a performance in Jyväskylä.

Both Anton and Lena are leaving for creative holidays to the Island of Monkeys and Butterflies to write the screenplay for a feature film. An offer from the Lenfilm studios has come rather surprisingly. Pre-production is going to start in October. And we had better keep the plot a secret now.

In September, as an exercise, DEREVO is going to film some videos to the music by Positive Band. We suspect it might become a film too. That’d be good.

and also the entire DEREVO and many, very many friends, actors, artists, children, musicians, dancers…

«…Six musicians are playing at parties. There’s a phone call and the party host sends a car for them. As they see it the guys realise that this party they will hardly forget: the car is constructed of shinbones of drug dealers, the sail is stitched from a thousand blue neckties of the GDR young pioneers, the driver is a Giant Albino of dying breed of Squirrelgoats…»

Such a one

«…the reviving well of laughter is getting dry, the bucket bangs against the mossy walls… Instead of a jolly joke it brings back just sadness in the green bottle of tarragon soda…»

DJ Cornflower

«… It will be a musical film. Even too musical..»

Emmanuel Brüskind

Anybody wishing to help out with the costumes, light and sound, props and make-up, with the lunch and general assistance, anybody wishing to be merry and quick-witted…. please e-mail us

Meanwhile Vadim Tverdyukov, Nikolay Gusev and Nastya Ponomareva are finishing the mixing and mastering of the Positive Band’s album „Cat on Accordion“…

And there’s more to come:

September, Faust by Alexander Sokurov is in competition at the Venice Film Festival.
(I should think about getting some tails)

A big theatrical project in Perm in Russia

AVIA concert in Yubileyny in St Petersburg

Preparations for the performance at the Mikhail Chemiakin’s art exhibition

«Sleeplessnes. Homer. Taut sails. I have read the catalogue of ship just halfway through…»

Daniel told me to stop writing a novel in the first person, people would need some facts, where have we been, where will we be, what have we done…

Here, I wrote about where we’ve been and what’s coming up

Lena Yarovaya told me that everyone knows it anyway and that a flatfish is hiding in the sand by using vibrations.

Here, I wrote about the flatfish, although it pretends to be a maggot there.

I’m tired now.

Just read all that you want. It’s just a troubled week of April.

We were in St.P.

HARLEKIN, MEPHISTO WALTZ, the workshop (there was quite a lot of people, about sixty or so). Then there were four days of dreaming up the DROP in the OCEAN.

Then I flew back to Dresden.

I’m not getting sic easily, you know. I mean any flu, quinsy and so on. But suddenly - bamm! I woke up and realise that I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t want to go to the theatre. Rather I want to read something by James Fenimore Cooper. And I want a thermometer. It says to me: 38°.

Two days have passed like this. To me it’s just as unusual as reading my words in the press. Unusual but wonderful.

I’ve got a friend (yes, you can envy me). His name is Igor Timofeev. He lives on the outskirts of St Petersburg. He has a house, a sauna and twenty-eight guitars.

This place is my cavern. When I can’t cope anymore with hearing somebody else’s heart, I can escape there,into the sauna.

Everything describable just stops there. Words and actions change their meaning or lose it completely. We speak to each other there but subjects are not known to us and they’re not suggested by us.

He had a dream.

The manner, as he told it to me, refers to the special language of the steam room.

“raised on horizon… colour of the sky changed… like it was needed there… but they’re drawing here unnatural and a big piece… I unbuttonned the shirt to meet the punch… twenty seconds are still there… first light then I close my eyes then a sound, and in the sound I understand… stand and wait and then the air blows and it’s twisted… ribbed… I see the great playful movements of an accordion which you can touch with your hands… and the eyes flying towards you and me… do you understand!? I’m flying through the nuclear explosion and to my framework… to my skeleton everything is clean understand?? washed and cleaned and inflatable eyes maybe five meters large and I must turn them somehow…”

Then I could remember the rest of my own dream. I’ve never forgotten it to be honest.

I was running and following Pieretta to the stage. It’s a long tunnel. She’s lighter and faster, I wouldn’t be able to reach her. And suddenly I was not chasing her anymore but simply running, precisely and evenly. It was the run to the stage. I kissed my shoulder while I was running there.

On the opposite wall, there was a big letter “E” and then “A”. I realised that I must remember them, for I was running towards the beginning of these words. It’s not hard. When the letters were over I could put together the words “Heat Mode”. Now I was running directly towards the red glow. It was very easy to run.

We’ve added our dreams. I can’t quite remember what has happened after it. Nastya said something about a butterfly who gives a flower a slap in the face. We reproached her with poeticizing of men’s problems. However, the picture of that night has been completed: a butterfly and the hysterical kiss of a light bulb…

Ode to a one-day fly

The worm lying in a tight cocoon
Your life goes forth unhurried
You see no spring, you’re purposeless.
You’re sure you’re resting here for ever.

It’s so delightful, so silent here.
One year or two
But suddently there’s a coolness cracking in.
Scream, you worm! death is coming
Your shield is crackling and it’s scary. Scary!
The wind has blown away the pieces of the cocoon.

Are you dead? No, alive.
So what is that?
Where’s your house? Where’s the tightness and the dryness?
And the crushing there is again like thunder!

Behind your back two wonderful wings unfolded
And you are flying, you are singing.
Your day is in the sky, exposed to the wind
And to the sun of the world

You have been thinking this is death?
But this is life.
Exactly one day long.

In May Anton and the Positive Band hope to finish the promised CD “Cat on Accordion”. Meanwhile you can enjoy the new video by Andrey Gladkikh to the song “All Seasons” by Andrey Sizintsev, Nikolay Gusev and Anton Adasinsky.

You wouldn’t remember me probably. It’s St. Petersburg, former Leningrad. I saw you yesterday on the street but was too shy to say hello. Besides, it was just too noisy.

I have heard quite a lot about you. Recently I read a nice interview of yours, some girl dropped it somewhere. Well done. I’m almost envying you.

And I’m looking like some terrible creature. It’s OK for now, when the snow is still there. But in Summer it becomes really awful. I’m old now. And this damn salt they use against the ice… I’m stinking like a foul stockfish. I used to look after myself but I just gave up. Who values it anyway? Old good Petersburger chaps are passing, there’s nobody to talk to in the good Russian. And I don’t really understand those youngsters, we hardly can become friends. They seem to ignore me. They think instead of New York. By the way, the latter called me yesterday. It sounded tired. Though it was trying to save face. You know them, Americans…

And I’m not really fond of travelling anymore. Do you remember as I went on a short trip in 1993 and right away the mushrooms attacked the Leningrad area? I hardly could stop them.

I’m not in the best mood now, you see. I’m looking forward to Victory Day though. I like it when they march on me… it tickles!

Remember as you were leaving and told me to be careful with helping people. You also said something about the dead Teotihuacan, who

said that the Force goes first, then the Priests and then the people. Or have I mixed something up? Could you write me more precisely? It’s really important to me.

This Spring I am hoping to clean myself properly, wash away all this dirt. The snow should be enough but it will be nearly impossible because of the dyke. Maybe I should move away, Anton. What do you think?

When you are here again, just show up. Maybe we can spend some time together sitting on the Naryshkin bastion.

It’s not looking good with my internet access right now. Just write me per Neva river.

I went to the show… or I was taken there to be precise.
A puppet show. A cloth and two puppets hanging. A Boy and a Girl.
7 and a half people in the audience…
tears in my eyes. The world becomes so pure and bright.
On stage, no people smelling of life, no newspapers with murderers.
- Hide quoted text -

Just the cardboard heart, the crumpled silk flower and a small bag of
money (don’t know anymore what for, whether a dowry or ransom…)
Quite an old story. Sound of toy horses and barrel organs. It just
can’t be true.
And at the end the cashier Yershov is hanged at the gallows.

Outside I smoked and blew my nose. Silk, Gypsies and Fandango.

Do you remember? Mommy, mommy, it hurts…

So here’s a song about the small bag of happiness.
Listen to and obey…

Another video premiere online! Right on April Fool’s Day 2009 the film by Andrey Gladkih “Adventures of the Golden Egg” has been published on YouTube (High Quality available). This is a first part of the four planned in total: